We Have a Technical

Our favourite time of the year's come and gone with Terminus: Modulation in the books. Four days, thirty-one acts, and a goodly amount of beer later, we're here to break down all of the festivities which took place this past weekend in Calgary. Pleasant surprises, hot prospects, and the odd swing and a miss, you'll get the blow by blow details on this episode of We Have A Technical.

On the occasion influential 1999 debut "Viral Extinction" being remastered, we're happy to welcome back Flesh Field's Ian Ross to the podcast to discuss the record in its entirety with us. We're touching on how the record reflected Ian's influences but also pointed towards a new vision for dark electro, how limitations in gear both hindered and helped the creation of the record, and so much more.

It's a "Born To Runner Up" themed episode this week, as we're each picking five of our second favourite records by specific artists. From underrated comebacks to idiosyncratic personal faves, we had a lot of fun making cases for each of these. We're also chiming in on the new NIN track from the forthcoming Tron: Ares soundtrack.

This week's two albums format has us discussing two records separated by a number of years but both abutting upon dark electro even as both artists work to define their own separate aesthetic: Moral Cleansing , the first full-length from TBM producer SARIN, and Contempt , the debut of Tom Shear's Assemblage 23. We're also talking the Pixel Grip/Travis Scott debacle, a forthcoming Coil tome, and so...

As is our custom when there's a new record from industrial legends Laibach, we're taking to the podcast to discuss it rather than simply knocking out a review. A deeply collaborative record between Slovenian and Iranian musicians, Alamut is a record steeped in history and which draws together diverse strands of Laibach's own musical past and future as well as contemporary art music composition fro...

In a wide-ranging open topic conversation, we discuss our thoughts about the purpose, value, and reception of negative music reviews in Our Thing. What's the line between constructive criticism and a hatchet job? Why write them or, conversely, avoid writing them? All that and plenty of questions in between await on the latest episode of We Have A Technical.

For this month's Patreon-supported bonus podcast, we're talking about the second LP from Wes Eisold's post-punk/synthpop act Cold Cave. A record that has taken on more emotional resonance as it (and we!) have aged, so there's gonna be a lot of talk about feelings, not to mention Cold Cave's unique place in the transition from the landfill post-punk boom into the contemporary darkwave era.  

We have a classic two albums episode for you this week folks, including the last decidedly industrial-related work from German act The Galan Pixs, plus the experimentation of latter-era Portion Control with their SEEDEP3 . We're also looking ahead at some records set to be released in the back half of 2025.

We're catching up with a whole slew of news and live show business off the top of this episode as your regularly scheduled ID:UD programming resumes, and we're returning to the ever-popular Pick Five format. From powernoise to goth rock we're each picking some especially long tracks and talking about how that length has shaped our impressions of them.

The passing of legendary Nitzer Ebb frontman Douglas J. McCarthy is the only thing we could talk about on this week's podcast. Forgive us if this episode is a bit more scattered than usual; news of McCarthy's passing came out less than an hour before our recording, but we wanted to at least get some of our thoughts about his work and legacy out, as well as personal remembrances. 

On this week's episode of We Have a Technical, Alex is joined by Chris Hewitt of Terminus Festival to discuss the history of our favourite annual gathering of bands and fans of Our Thing, as well as the logistics of putting on a big event, the finer points of arranging a line-up, and what acts we're most excited for in this year's fest! It's a great convo with a long time friend of the site, and o...

This month's We Have a Commentary takes on a special form as Alex welcomes Jason Pettigrew to the podcast, where the longtime Ministry chronicler fills us in on his new 33 1/3 on Ministry's immortal industrial classic The Land of Rape and Honey . Join us as the former Alt. Press Editor in Chief and alternative music writer extraordinaire outlines how the book came together, who he spoke to (and he...

On this week's episode of the official I Die: You Die podcast, we welcome Barrett and Panther from Bootblacks, who gave us the skinny on their excellent forthcoming LP Paradise on a windy but very scenic day in Vancouver a few weeks back. Details on their recent lineup changes, the genesis of the record and their goals in making it, as well as their philosophy on performance and what they want to...

On this week's episode, we're taking some time to talk with Canadian synthpop legend Darrin Huss of Psyche, in an interview recorded a few hours before his set at Veboden festival here in Vancouver just a few short weeks ago. It's a wide-ranging discussion of the band's origins, legacy, Darrin's own relationship with his catalogue, Psyche's fans, and how he approaches addressing the different gene...

With Bruce off to the highlands and Alex recovering under a pile of coats in a hall closet somewhere, this week's episode is a hastily recorded recap of this year's Verboden Festival from right here in Vancouver. You can hear the strain in the quality of our voices at the time of this recording, as we did plenty of chatting with artists, attendees and assorted friends and well-wishers while taking...

We're talking about records by electronic pioneers who need little introduction in Gary Numan and Uwe Schmidt's Lassigue Bendthaus, but while the latter's Matter is an undisputed, hugely influential masterpiece, Numan's Berserker has a more mixed legacy, hinting at the rough sledding ahead. We're also chatting loads of festival news (real and hypothetical) on this week's episode.

We love two things here at ID:UD - dark music festivals, and arbitrary competition. We're combining those two passions with a mock draft of our own non-existent music fests, drawing from the line-ups of a handful of this year's real-world parties. Which of our two line-ups seems the most tempting to you? Let us know here or on socials, or give us your own line-up from the same pool.

A landmark for minimal, aggressive EBM for decades to come, the debut LP from Swedish legends Pouppée Fabrikk is the subject of this month's commentary podcast. A deceptively varied listen, Rage infused EBM with a unique punk ethos, and as we discuss here, hinted at the voluminous discography frontman Henrik Nordvargr Björkk was to embark upon. 

We're getting into the weeds of US industrial this week, discussing a record that captures a very specific early 90s moment, along with some formal experimentation in D.D.T.'s Discomedia , and one which consolidates the strength and range of cyberpunk stalwarts Cyanotic, The Trigger Effect . We're also looking over the solid lineup and new location for this year's Subtance Festival.

How does community lead to the discovery of new music? How do changes in the circles we run in or means through which we communicate lead to changes in our musical diets? How do modern algorithms interrupt or aid those musical flows? These are questions probably best left to serious sociological researchers, but instead you've got us two chuckleheads talking about the subject on this week's We Hav...

We're offering up one of classic, easy going Pick Five episodes this week folks, as we each look back at some underrated singles. Which tunes came out too early or too late to hit the spotlight? Which hinted at roads less travelled by established bands? And which tickled the fancies of the Senior Staff just because? 

We're going hard in the powernoise paint this week, as we look back on records from very different periods in the history of the subgenre, Tarmvred's  Subfusc  and Iszoloscope's  The Edge Of Certainty . There's a lot of lateral discussion about the genre on the whole, in addition to consideration of what stands out about these records so many years on from their release. We're also breaking down t...

On this month's commentary we look at a nearly 40 year old classic which feels as though it could have been released in response to the world at large today: Test Dept.'s The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom . In addition to the record's searing indictment of the intertwining of capitalism and fascism at the expense of the working class, it marks a turning point for the band, with their classic indust...

We're reaching just across some borders this week, talking about a pair of records which abut upon the industrial and goth worlds but aren't entirely part and parcel of them. First up is the latest and very cyperpunk-themed record from the industrial-tinged hip-hop trio Clipping. Next, we're talking about Chicago experimentalist Circuit Des Yeux's new dark art rock opus, which lifts from the same...

It's our sesexacentennial anniversary here at We Have A Technical, and no, that's not a mispronunciation of some oddly named aggrotech album, but cod-Latin for our 550th episode. We like to do something special every fifty episodes, and this is no different, with the Senior Staff casting their eyes and ears back to some club hits which didn't exactly curry favour with them upon release, and reappr...